Smokies gem gets make-over

It would be easy to climb the rock steps of Alum Cave Trail’s iconic Arch Rock under the tacit assumption that these stones were born here, serendipitously raised into place on a naturally occurring 5-mile trail winding through rugged mountainside.

But the truth is that picture-perfect Alum Cave Trail, marked by smooth tread and tightly constructed steps and bridges, is the result of two years of backbreaking work involving 50,000 hours of work from a continuously rotating crew of 50 people.

Reopened in November 2016, the Alum Cave Trail — one of the most popular routes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park — had been closed Monday through Thursday, May through October, as work progressed. Before rehabilitation, the trail had been a veritable mess of roots and erosion and unsafe trail edges. Search and rescue calls were common on the trail when people lost their footing and fell, sustaining injuries that rendered them incapable of hiking out.

Now, those situations are much less likely arise.

“It’s not just a rehabilitation of a trail, but it is a transformation of the whole experience, the whole hiking experience,” the park’s Deputy Superintendent Clay Jordan said at the Nov. 17 ribbon-cutting ceremony. “Now instead of looking down at your feet trying not to become the next victim hauled out by our park search and rescue team for an ankle, now you look up, look around you, and you embrace the beauty of the Smokies and of the whole experience.”

Every inch of the trail has been smoothed over to eliminate hazards posed by rocks and roots. Water bars have been installed, steps built, bridges constructed and areas like Arch Rock completely refurbished. It took 10 workers five months to finish that short section, with the steps requiring 74 rocks weighing 300 to 1,500 pounds apiece. In the backcountry, there’s no such thing as a crane to lift such heavy materials. Workers had to search the forest for suitable rocks, move them with ropes and pulleys, and then drill, split and install them by hand.

It should therefore go without saying that the trail restoration wasn’t cheap. And, with only a shoestring federal budget to carry it along, the park most certainly did not have a spare $500,000 to fund the project.

That’s where Friends of the Smokies’ Trails Forever program comes in. Funding emanates from an endowment fund that started when the Knoxville-based Aslan Foundation promised $2 million if Friends of the Smokies could fundraise a match. The nonprofit met that challenge in 2012, and Trails Forever was born. The program, whose endowment now holds about $5 million, uses the money to fund specialized trail crews to rebuild high-priority trails in the park. Many, like the Alum Cave Trail, hadn’t seen any significant restoration since they were first constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

Since 2012, Smokies Trails Forever has funded rehabilitation of the Forney Ridge Trail, the Chimney Tops Trail, and now the Alum Cave Trail. For much of the work, they’ve relied on the American Conservation Experience, a nonprofit that provides volunteer service opportunities for college students looking to go into conservation careers. On the Alum Cave Trail, ACE students provided 44,000 of the 50,000 hours of labor.

Muscles were certainly required to bring the project to completion, but Trails Forever is about the artistry as much as it is about the brawn. The goal is to hide all evidence that tools were ever brought into the backcountry. Rocks are placed so that drill marks face the ground. Turned-up earth is re-covered with fallen leaves. Moss and ferns are planted alongside the new infrastructure, making the freshly placed rocks look like they’ve been there for 50 years.

With any luck, generations will pass before anyone gives a thought to reconstructing the trail again.

“The trail was built by the CCC 80 years ago, and now we are getting to do kind of a CCC 2.0,” said the park’s trails program manager Tobias Miller. “We’re basically refreshing it and hoping for another 100 years that Americans can enjoy these gems.”

Rainbow Falls under trail closure for restoration work

Next up on the priority list for Smokies Trails Forever is the Rainbow Falls Trail, a heavily-used route that, like Alum Cave, is one of several paths to Mount LeConte. The lower portion of the 6.5-mile trail, which leads to the falls, is mostly level. As a result, it’s become so heavily braided with user-made trails that it’s hard to tell which is the original trail route.

Like the Alum Cave project, rehabilitation of the Rainbow Falls Trail is expected to take two full seasons to complete. This year, the trail and its parking areas will be closed from 7 a.m. Mondays to 5:30 p.m. Thursdays, May 8 to Nov. 16, excluding federal holidays.

Before Alum Cave, the last project Trails Forever completed was an overhaul of the Chimney Tops Trail, which sustained significant damage as a result of the Chimney Tops 2 Fire last year. The blaze escaped the park on Nov. 28, 2016, to roar through Gatlinburg, killing 14 people and causing $500 million in damage.

As of press time, a full assessment of the Chimney Tops Trail had not been completed. However, while details have not yet been finalized the park does not expect repairs to Chimney Tops to affect the timeline of the Rainbow Falls project.

To donate to Smokies Trails Forever, visit friendsofthesmokies.org/product/preserve-trails-forever.